Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 052" video.

  1. wrt the Lexington battle cruiser refit question. I have seen pix of a scratchbuilt Lexington model modernized to WWII standards. It looked very much like an Iowa. What would have happened in the real world, if they had been built as battle cruisers? If they had been built as planned, that implies the Washington Treaty didn't happen, which means the SoDaks would have been built as well, so no surplus material ordered for the SoDaks would be available to reinforce the Lexington's armor. Would the Lexingtons ever have been significantly updated at any point through 1945? I would say probably not. They would not have been updated any more than any other class of USN capital ships in the 30s. If they were based at Pearl, due to their ability to keep up with the carriers, they would have been out with the carriers and not damaged in the attack. Without being sunk or heavily damaged at Pearl, they would have had the minimal updating that other capital ships that missed Pearl received: added triple A, updated fire control and radar, like Colorado. Their best chance of surviving the war would have been as triple A platforms protecting the carriers. as the Japanese pilots would be concentrating on the carriers. If they got involved in any of the surface engagements around the Solomons or Philippines , they would have been shot full of holes.
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  2.  @RedXlV  Ironically, if the Lexingtons had not been rebuilt as carriers, the US would have been better off in 1941. The Lexingtons were very inefficient aircraft carriers. If those two carriers were not built, the USN would have had tonnage allowance for 3 more Yorktowns, with enough tonnage left over for Wasp to be a full sized Yorktown, instead of the undersized, underpowered, underprotected thing it was.
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  3. Not Royal Navy, but wrt the USN, I went through a museum on the campus of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis many decades ago. There was an exhibit of artifacts salvaged off the wreck of the Maine, including a cutlass in a scabbard that had been bolted to a bulkhead of the ship. Not intended for combat, but, when I was a boot at Great Lakes 50 years ago, next month, the RPOC who marched the company around the base had a cutlass.
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